Category Archives: Making A Difference

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Guess who made the best guess

Grade 11 students invited the H.I.S. community to make a very “sweet guess” before Winter Break. The M&M guessing was launched on Monday, December 10th and officially ended on Friday, December 14th after the Winter Fair!

Many thanks to everyone who participated in the project and helped to raise over 80 Euros for Habitat for Humanity!

Here is what you’ve all been waiting for: the glass jar contained 3167 M&Ms! The jar of M&Ms was handed over to the lucky winner, Ishan, who got closest with his guess of 3165.

Congratulations Ishan and don’t eat them all at once! Everybody else, please don’t be disappointed, you might have better luck with the raffle… Keep an eye out for posters around the school and the blog! We appreciate your help!

Janne, from the Habitat For Humanity team

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Waldpiraten Run Donations – Where did it go?

On the 13th of November, we visited the Waldpiraten Camp in Boxberg. If you recall, earlier this school year we had a Waldpiraten run, in which the whole school was involved.

We, students and teachers, ran under the hot sun for a few hours and donated money for each lap. Turns out, we collected 2805.38 Euros , the largest sum ever raised by the H.I.S community. The money was donated to the Waldpiraten Camp as H.I.S. has done so for years.

Sonja Müller, the leader of the camp, also gave us a tour of the camp and was astounded by the amount of contributions and was curious to know more about our yearly run to support their organization.

The Waldpiraten Camp is a place where children who are diagnosed with cancer or have disabilities can come together, share their experiences, and have a good time. A certain number of children join the nine day camps throughout the year, however mainly during summer months. They also have the chance to bring their relatives on specific weekends. The whole camp operates on government subsidies and donations similar to the one our school gave. The money we donated, according to Sonja Mueller (one of the social education workers at the camp), can pay the full stay for two children at the camp.

Along with giving our collections of donations, we also got a tour of the camp. Here are a few insights of the camp. The camp has a variety of facilities including:

  • Theater room/stage
  • Art room 
  • Color coded huts
  • Playroom
  • Playground
  • Football field
  • Cafeteria
  • Adventure park
  • Fire pits
  • Large pizza/bread oven

The organization emphasizes that all children taking part in the camp will be able to share the same experiences, as the different activities they provide have been adjusted to all conditions. For example, at the camp they have an adventure park in the trees where all the children can take part and climb along the obstacles. Certain obstacles that attach to platforms are constructed in a way that children in a wheelchair can also have the chance to participate and experience being high up in the trees. Sonja Müller, told us that there are also other exercises they perform on a rock climbing section, where the children that can see have to cover their eyes with a blindfold and then try to climb up the wall. It is important for some of those in the camp that are not blind to understand how difficult it is to do certain activities and also have the chance to experience it for themselves. By the end of their camp, the children end their exciting nine days with a disco party, which they all love to take part in.

 The camp, organization, and facility is truly another home for the children, that allows them to feel comfortable and at the same time, develop new skills through a variety of activities.

Thank you, H.I.S. community, for being “dedicated to making a difference” over the years by supporting the Waldpiraten organization and giving opportunities for children to go to the camp.

text: Kyra & Pritha

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MYP Garden Gnomes at Work

Thanks to all the MYP students who came to the help of PYP last week.

Our beautifully newly-painted PYP garden boxes required a top-up of soil before the PYP students could plant spring bulbs and winter flowers. It is always lovely to see the response from students and teachers when you ask for help!

text: NP

 

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A Day of Service

The IB Programmes at H.I.S. facilitate a holistic approach to education. As well as academic lessons, the students have opportunities to develop their creativity, physical health, their social and emotional skills – as well as have fun.

Service is one aspect of the curriculum that is common to PYP, MYP and DP. Of course, it looks a little different depending on the age of the student, but the idea of giving our time for the good of others, is the same throughout.

To be able to identify with the experiences of our students and in turn to be able to support them effectively, the H.I.S. staff took Monday 1st October as a day of service to the Heidelberg community. We were involved in three projects; helping to sort and sell second hand clothes at the German Red Cross (DRK) store in Epplelheim, clearing weeds from the carpark at the Hoffnungskirche and supporting the keepers in various areas of the Heidelberg Zoo.

Back in school on Tuesday 2nd October, we reflected on our experiences and presented our reflections to one another.

There was an awareness of being part of a bigger picture – our small sorting or weeding contributions did not necessarily finish a job, but definitely helped!

The development of a team within a task led to increased efficiency and learning to anticipate one another’s needs – how quickly sand can be distributed!

It was rewarding to receive feedback whether verbally from those instructing us or from watching the pigs roll around excitedly in their new bed of woodchips!

We gave our day for the agenda of another, we persevered through the heat and the smells, we challenged ourselves physically… and we look forward to the next time!

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On Your Marks, Get Set, Serve!

Service as Action 2018-19

Grade 6 were the first of the MYP classes to be introduced to Service as Action (SA) this school year.  SA is part of the curriculum for all MYP students as stipulated by the IB. It is a fantastic opportunity for our students to be involved in making positive change for others. At H.I.S., SA can form part of a unit of learning.

It is also a part of the Homeroom Programme, and each class will be supported by their Homeroom teacher to complete at least one Service activity during the school year, either as a class or in small groups.

In these introductory sessions, students focus on the who, what, where, when, but most importantly, the why of Service based learning. Over the next few weeks, the rest of the MYP will also hear about the key aspects as well as become familiar with the seven learning outcomes for service.

The Waldpiraten Run will be the first chance for students to get involved in an action to support a local charity, and Grade 6 students were asked to set themselves targets as well as identify the learning outcomes they hope to achieve. For the non-runners, “undertaking new challenges” was identified as a likely outcome. For those setting goals to run more than 20 laps, “persevering in action” will be a necessary skill.

Over the school year, we look forward to celebrating student successes in the area of service and seeing the many great causes and communities we can support.

text & photos: HP

 

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Waldpiraten Run 2018

Students, staff and parents ran and walked to support the Waldpiraten Camp https://www.kinderkrebsstiftung.de/nachsorge/waldpiraten-camp.html on Friday last week. The annual charity run is a fun event and we are very grateful for the effort all supporters put into organising the event, special thanks to Grade 11 students. Congratulations to all participants for the fantastic effort. Watch a little clip on our Facebook page to see more photos of the run!

photos: KG, FL  – film clip: FL

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Let’s Play!

Climbing, balancing, jumping, tumbling, smiling … and quite a lot of posing for the camera! At morning break today, the students were able to explore and enjoy the new playground equipment. Our patience and hard work over the last month were finally rewarded. Thanks to all the members of our community and the Naturspur Team for contributing to this exciting project.

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Work on the playground…..

….continued today. With the MYP students all out on a Field Trip, Primary students were helping to distribute wood chips. The students were doing a fantastic job, working with wheelbarrows, shovels and buckets. There are still more “mountains” to be moved, so join us on Saturday (9am – 5pm) if you would like to volunteer. There will be a BBQ at lunch time!

photos: AS

 

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Creativity, Activity And Service

Grade 11 CAS Workshop at Freiwilligenagentur Heidelberg

What are my interests and my skills? What do I want to do as service for CAS?

Together with their CAS Co-ordinator, Frau Kress, Grade 11 students went off to a workshop at the Freiwilligenagentur Heidelberg (Agency for volunteers) on Monday. The Freiwilligenagentur is an agency which brings together possibilities for community work in Heidelberg and people who want to do voluntary work. This organization works together with 200 different institutions in Heidelberg, and the current offers and needs are listed on an internet portal. The aim of the CAS workshop was, on the one hand, to inform the students about the work of this organization. On the other hand, the students were able to develop their “social profiles.”

The students worked in groups and presented their ideas and wishes. Frau Ebeling, who conducted the workshop, evaluated the student presentations and made some suggestions for possible voluntary activities in Heidelberg. The workshop was in German, therefore a lot of translation work was done by the native speakers. It was a long day with lots of information, but it is quite obvious that this is a great resource for the service component of CAS. Thanks to Mrs. Ebeling and the Freiwilligenagentur team for this great opportunity!

I thought that the workshop was extremely helpful as we learned about places in Heidelberg where we can do volunteering work that we are interested about. (Inigo)

I believe it was a positive experience in which we learned more about the things we like and where we can pursue our passions as part of the DP curriculum. (Ana)

photos: BK